Letter published in the Bexhill Observer: Missed chance to set new targets.

Hastings may seem to most people to be thoroughly urban, but it is blessed with countryside for almost 180 degrees around its boundary, the remainder being sea! The problem is that the surrounding countryside is under serious threat at the moment.

Letter, published in the Rye & Battle Observer, 12th October 2018

Rother Council planners are trying to respond to the pressures brought about by the Government’s new planning regime (NPPF 2018) by speeding up the process of their Development and Site Allocation Plan (DaSA).

Letter to Rye and Battle Observer, from Stephen Hardy, CPRE Sussex Trustee. Published 19 Jan 2018

The Campaign to Protect Rural England is pleased to see at last the Government's commitment to improving the environment shown in the 25-year plan launched last week, but we need actions, not simply warm words to ensure the Government provides the means to ensure we use resources wisely, from plastics to land.

Rother  suffers as a planning authority from a permanent  malaise – that of being always behind the curve.  Yes, it produced a core strategy back in 2014  with  what  is for the  South East a relatively  modest housing requirement, but according to the latest  planning agendas  is  down to  providing only a  3.1  year housing  supply.  I do not really want to blame the Council because it is house builders who are not  building out permissions granted, but the recent reaction to  this  supposed crisis is for Rother planners to recommend granting  any   application  that comes in the  High Weald AONB, no matter that most of the sites  up for approval were categorised  by the self-same Rother officers three years ago in their SHLAA as red (i.e. not suitable for whatever reasons to be developed) sites.   

Letter to: Rye and Battle Observer
From: Stephen Hardy, MBE, Trustee, CPRE Sussex

Poignantly, the BBC last week showed a picture of the cottages at Birling Gap, just down the coast, which are predicted to collapse into the sea within 25 years.

Rother DC is one of those relatively rare councils with an up to date Core Strategy. That said, since the Strategy was adopted in September 2014, there has been little activity in producing the Site Allocation Document. We wonder whether local elections in May 2015 played a part in this. To avoid the planning lacuna, now four parishes have been progressing their own Neighbourhood Plan proposals; Rother’s attitude was initially very lukewarm and very few resources are being offered by the Planning Department.

15 April 2015

Bizarrely at exactly the same time last Thursday, there were two very similar decisions being made about planning applications, one in Ticehurst by Rother, and one three miles away in neighbouring Wadhurst by Wealden.